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Obama on Iran: 'pattern of reckless and dangerous behavior'

President Obama said Thursday that Iranian government officials had knowledge of a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., but the president stopped short of calling the planned assassination an act of war.

Obama did try to up the ante after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the plot, disrupted by the Justice Department, represented a "dangerous escalation" by Iran.

"This is not just a dangerous escalation," Obama said at a joint press conference with the president of South Korea. "This is a pattern of reckless and dangerous behavior by the Iranian government."